The prompt showing potential new skills disappeared as James made his choice. Alright, let's see how this works. Broadcast menu. James thought, a new screen appearing with not only a list of options, but a three-dimensional model of the tower.
{Broadcast Menu
Active Displays: 0 (Create Display)
Display Options: (Most Popular Climber), (List of Climbers), (Rotating Display),
Screen Placement:
(Finalize Selection)}
The model of the tower appeared where 'screen placement' was located, and James found he could easily rotate the tower with a thought. I can even scroll to the ground floor or to the top of the tower. Now if only I could see the outside around the tower, but it looks like it only shows the tower itself.
James manipulated the screens partially by thinking the specific words he wanted to select and partially by imagining himself clicking on the screen with hands he no longer had. Focusing on the words 'create display' made a rectangular box appear in front of the tower model, and by imagining himself pinching at the box like one would an image on a touchscreen, James found he could change the size, though not the dimensions, of the box.
Looks like the size maxes out at about half the tower's diameter. If I shrink the screens a little more than that, I can have four screens, one every 90 degrees. I'll place them just above the doors so they aren't too high to be seen from the ground... Actually, it looks like this tower has twelve doors circling the base of the tower. This thing doesn't show the measurements of the tower, so maybe I should make the screens smaller, and place one above each door? Okay, yeah, how about... One above each of the twelve doors, four bigger screens above them, and three smaller screens on the spaces between doors... That's... 52 screens...
James had already asked about the size of the tower, but at hearing 61-3 use kilometers, quickly lost all sense of scale. Hopefully out of the three different screen sizes, at least two of them will be easily visible. Even if they're too big to be seen from the ground, however, I'm sure a news helicopter could capture the full view of the four biggest screens.
Next is choosing what they'll display. Selecting most popular climber doesn't give any further customization options, but list of climbers does. List active climbers, list defeated climbers, list successful climbers which is currently unavailable as no one's left the tower yet, List climber wave statistics? James selected the last option, and looked through the new prompt that appeared. Climber wave statistics shows the number of living climbers out of total climbers, the time left until the next wave, and an option to briefly display the name of any climber when they either die or complete the tower. This will work great for the four biggest screens. I'll have the twelve above the doors display the most popular climber until I get recorded viewing, and I'll list defeated climbers and active climbers alongside another most popular climber screen on each side with the three smallest screens, so people will be able to look up any names they missed from the big four displays, as well as a closer look at the info from the twelve medium displays. The general climber statistics are just to inform people who might be looking for those currently in the tower, or wanting to know how they're doing. The twelve medium displays, and the twelve smaller versions of those displays, will be what I use for teaching potential climbers. Once I get recorded viewing, I can begin researching what would be the best information to display and putting it together, but hopefully they'll be able to learn from the most popular survivor feed until then.
[Broadcast Selection Finalized. Beginning Broadcast.]
"Understood. Thank you." James said as the Broadcast Menu closed. Next is to create a quest to get people to hunt goblins. On second thought, maybe I should wait on that. I think it's still night inside the tower, and if the day and night cycle matches that of the outside of the tower, then I think the first battle happened at midnight. I'll wait til morning to give out any quests. Until then, since I don't seem to need any sleep myself...
James opened the climber menu, and found that now he could switch the display of names to organize by wave in addition to level. James selected a climber from the new wave to watch, immediately seeing a screen pop up displaying the village. It was dark, but a few fires were still burning from the first wave climbers that had stayed awake to keep watch. The village could use some lanterns, most of the climbers just look like shadowy blobs in this lighting. James noticed many of the first wave climbers were awake, and talking animatedly amongst themselves. The mandatory quest and the arrival of the second wave climbers must have woken people up. James surmised, watching as some of the first wave climbers showed the details of the mandatory quest to the second wave climbers.
"-a time limit for completing the tower?" James heard the second wave climber he was observing ask. "How do I know if I have a quest like that? I haven't seen anything pop up since we finished off those goblins."
"Uh, you can pull up quest details by thinking or saying 'quest menu'. You can also put items and dead monsters into an inventory by willing to have the object put away somewhere while touching it." A first wave climber half mumbled. Despite the commotion going on, many climbers on both sides were tired, and for some the adrenaline was beginning to wear off.
James watched as first wave climbers continued answering questions from second wave climbers. Many were upset to find that they didn't have a bed or even a proper bathroom anymore, but at least one outhouse with leaves for toilet paper had been built, and any complaints were quickly shut down by first wave climbers mentioning how they had had it worse. As uncomfortable as the situation was, the second wave climbers knew the first wave was not at fault, and were grateful for the water the first wave had gathered. Water was beginning to run low, however, with the second wave nearly doubling the number of climbers in the village. Talks of a midnight run to the river were discussed, and ultimately dismissed, with climbers deciding to wait until sunrise. Many of the first wave of climbers went back to sleep after an hour, but James noticed the majority of the second wave climbers stayed awake a few hours more.
Makes sense, the second wave just got done fighting for their lives, the first wave only received an upsetting quest and the commotion of new people arriving to the village. James passed the time switching from one observer to the next, at first switching whenever the current observer showed another climber on the screen, and going to the other climber's observer, but eventually James simply reordered the climber list by level, and went through the names one at a time. I can at least make sure no one is trying to steal from someone else or going outside of the walls on their own. James eavesdropped on the occasional conversation, from a young second wave climber asking a first wave keeping watch how they were supposed to go back to sleep after everything, to climbers trying to go back to sleep talking about how much they missed their beds. James didn't stay in any conversation for too long, moving on once he was sure they weren't talking about robbing or murdering anyone that was asleep. I want to believe people are better than that, but it never hurts to make sure.
Time passed without incident, until the sun began to rise in the first floor's sky. I still feel wide awake. Without a body I don't have any need to sleep. That will probably be useful in the future, but it was incredibly dull just sitting here with nothing to do but watch people sleep or scroll through the same menus over and over. Now that people are finally waking up...
"61-3, that quest we made to encourage everyone to leave the village, can we create it again and send it to all of the second wave climbers? Actually, can we send it to everyone, even those who haven't completed the quest yet?" Maybe I could create the quest five times for everyone on the first floor, and after three hours they could complete all the quests at once and get five low quality health potions!
[Negative, a climber cannot have two quests with the exact same progress tracker and reward. However, a quest can be reissued every day to the same climber provided they have finished the quest the day before.]
Alright, so no stacking quests... Unless I change it up a bit? "What if I have multiple quests that all require someone to stay outside of the village for a set amount of time, like one for three hours and one for six hours, would the first three hours contribute to both of the quests, or only one of them?"
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
[Progress towards quests can be set to progress at the same time as other quests, or separately, requiring the climber to set a certain quest as active.]
Alright! That could work. "Could you create a copy of the explore floor one quest from yesterday, and an additional quest with enough hours for ten gold to be set as the reward?" Health potions are useful, but climbers need money for other things, too. Helping them save up for the travel kit or other things should also be a priority.
[Affirmative. Quests created, please review the following quests.]
{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 437 Tower Points remaining.}
{You have added “1 Low Quality Health Potion” to the Reward(s). -75 Tower Points. 362 Tower Points remaining.}
{You have activated Create Quest. -10 Tower Points. 352 Tower Points remaining.}
{You have added “10 gold” to the Reward(s). -100 Tower Points. 252 Tower Points remaining.}
Two quest prompts appeared in addition to the four notifications showing his point expenditure, but James didn't read the quest prompts, too distracted by something he noticed in the notifications. "61-3, what's the price for a low quality health potion from the general store?"
[The base price for a low quality health potion sold from the general store is 5 gold.]
"And how many tower points does it cost to add 5 gold as a quest reward?"
[Gold and experience points may both be added as a quest reward at a rate of one unit per ten Tower Points.]
"So why does adding a low quality health potion directly to the quest reward cost more than giving out the gold to buy one? Is it because getting an item directly is more convenient?" James asked, guessing at an answer that came to mind in the middle of his question. I thought items would cost their equivalent in coins to add as a reward, but if most floors don't have a village, and so don't have a store to buy potions from, I could see items being more valuable than the money itself.
[Negative. Adding an item as a quest reward costs five Tower Points multiplied by the item's base price in gold, as such, adding an item directly is cheaper than adding the gold value of the item as the reward. This is because gold has more value being able to be used for a variety of purchases both in NPC and player run stores, or in bribing other players for protection or other services.]
So gold is valued more than the items it can buy because of its versatility? but- "But a low quality health potion costs 75 tower points for me to add as a quest reward, if it's supposed to cost five times the base price, it should only cost 25 tower points." James pointed out, voicing his thoughts. Does 61-3 not see the system prompts or notifications that I see?
[Running system diagnostics.]
A moment of silence passed, and James waited to see what would happen.
[Error found. Item 'low quality health potion' costs triple the assigned Tower Points to purchase as a quest reward. Submitting Error Report. Report submitted. Administrator James, thank you for informing me of this error. Expect to receive compensation from Administrative Command once the report has been processed and the error corrected.]
"Oh?" James said, his voice cracking despite the lack of physical vocal cords. "Administrative command is going to give me a reward? W-will someone be showing up to deliver the reward personally?" James asked, trying to ignore how his soul core was shaking. The attention of administrative command was the last thing I wanted! I know they're probably the ones responsible for putting me here, and they've surely dealt with other victims turned administrators who have tried to help their people survive, and even if they haven't, it's not like I've been doing a good enough job to alert them to my actions anyway... but meeting one of the beings responsible for this game, and not even having a body to defend myself with... "Please tell me this is less of a 'face to face meeting' and more of an 'automated thank you letter' type of deal?" James asked.
[In person interaction with or digital correspondence from another Administrator is unlikely to occur from the submission of an error report. The most probable outcome is a message refunding lost tower points and rewarding credits for finding an error, with the reward corresponding to the degree of error discovered.]
"Oh thank god." James said, feeling like a pressure surrounding him had been removed. Alright, nothing to worry about. I'm sure it'd have been fine anyways, but I'd greatly prefer not to run into another administrator if I can help it. Now to review the quests I asked 61-3 to create.
{Explore Floor 1!
Quest Type: Optional Single-Participant
Recipient(s): All Climbers on Floor 1
Description: You've come together and decided to explore the area surrounding the village. Leave the village and remain outside of its walls for three consecutive hours to receive a reward for your efforts.
Time Outside the Village: 00:00/03:00 (starts once outside of the village, resets if the village is entered before completion)
Reward(s): 1 Low Quality Health Potion
Confirm Quest?}
{Leave the Village!
(Input Quest Type)
(Input Quest Recipient(s))
Description: Leave the village and remain outside of its walls for five consecutive hours.
Time Outside the Village: 00:00/10:00 (starts once outside of the village, resets if the village is entered before completion)
Reward(s): 10 gold}
Wait, ten hours? That’s too long of a requirement without ever returning to the village. Even if some parties might pull it off, I want a quest that’s more likely to be cleared by everyone.
“61-3, could you cut the reward and progress for the leave the village quest so it rewards five gold for five hours?”
[Affirmative. Quest updated. Please review the following quest.]
{You have removed “5 Gold” from a Quest’s Reward(s). 45 Tower Points refunded. 297 Tower Points remaining.}
Alright, looking over the rest of the quests and they seem fine. I'll change the description of the first one to be more generic since it'll be handed out every day I can afford to, so the description shouldn't talk about how they decided to work together and explore anymore. The second quest needs to be edited to match the first one a bit more and have the blanks filled in. James decided, and began making changes to the quests.
{Explore Floor 1!
Quest Type: Optional Single-Participant
Recipient(s): All Climbers on Floor 1
Description: You must go outside the village to gather food and resources, and to find a way to the next floor. Spend three consecutive hours outside of the village walls to be rewarded for your efforts.
Time Outside the Village: 00:00/03:00 (starts once outside of the village, resets if the village is entered before completion)
Reward(s): 1 Low Quality Health Potion
Confirm Quest?}
{Explore Floor 1! Extended
Quest Type: Optional Single-Participant
Recipient(s): All Climbers on Floor 1
Description: You must go outside the village to gather food and resources, and to find a way to the next floor. Spend five consecutive hours outside of the village walls to be further rewarded for your efforts.
Time Outside the Village: 00:00/05:00 (starts once outside of the village, resets if the village is entered before completion)
Reward(s): 5 gold
Confirm Quest?}
These should do nicely. I don't know if I'll earn the nearly 200 points these quests require every day, but they make a solid daily quest type of deal. Confirm quest. Confirm quest. Now to come up with a good goblin hunting quest, and to find a suitable reward my remaining 297 tower points can buy.